For

Sound great, comfortable to wear, Bluetooth so no cables

Against

Microphone is rubbish

There's no doubt about it. music has the ability to give you that extra motivation when you are out on a run. But finding the right pair of headphones can be hard sometimes, with most designed for less-athletic pursuits. So Denon is hoping that the AH-W150 will give you great sound and let you ditch the wires while being ideal for running about on a cold winter's morning.

Design

Denon's new AH-W150 sports headphones are completely wireless, come with integrated controls and are perspiration resistant, making them ideal for pushing yourself physically. They're brightly coloured, light, and comfortably sit over the outer edge of your ear - almost like a hearing aid - with the actual eartips sitting in your ear canal.

The complete earphone element features a multi-tasking play/pause/skip button, and there are individual volume buttons as well on the other edge. The buttons are big and distinct enough to find them mid run.

Because most of the weight and staying power is from the over-ear element, they don't have to be wedged in for the whole contraption to stay in place. The anti-microbial eartips come in four different sizes (XS, S, M, L) to suit different ear sizes and there's a soft carry pouch to keep everything together.

A simple cable large enough to fit around hats, and mullets, joins the two together around the back of your head.

The design means that you can easily clean them too, and not worry about using a moist cloth to do so. We highly recommend baby wipes, for example.

Connectivity

The Denon AH-W150 sports headphones use Bluetooth 3.0 to pair with your phone or MP3 player. We tested them with an iPhone 5 and a Samsung Galaxy S 3 and had no problem pairing with either.

Once connected, they work in exactly the same way as any other Bluetooth headphones. Denon promises seven hours of battery life. We've used them on a number of runs (around five hours) and have yet to recharge them.

Hands-free

When it comes to making calls wirelessly, our advice is: don't bother. The AH-W150s offer the ability to take voice calls through the headphones as they come with a built-in microphone. Testing two sets of the headphones to make sure there wasn't a manufacturing fault, we were disappointed with the performance in both cases. Everyone we phoned said the call quality through the headphones was awful and insisted we switch back to the phone.

That's frustrating, but if you are on a run, you shouldn't have enough breath to talk a call anyway.

Sound

The important bit though is the sound. Here, we found the Denons to be amazing. The company has created a great pair of headphones that deliver plenty of bass, while not getting muddled. Volume turned up we could enjoy The Chemical Brothers and The Presets on our runs without issue. The only problem you might have is that the quality of the music gets you too excited. Remember, pace yourself.

Verdict

We really like the Denon AH-W150 sports headphones. They sound fantastic, are light, and if you go for yellow, have plenty of attitude to make you stand out from the crowd. We don't however, like the hands-free element, it's rubbish.

If you're not fussed about making calls and want to ditch the cable running down your arm or your back when you exercise, then these are worth checking out. If you need them to make calls, you should look elsewhere.